Behind The Yellow Line: Can You Read?

Behind The Yellow Line: Can You Read?

by Francisco Velazquez

The string of racist incidents on this campus don’t seem to stop, and this means we will no longer continue to be silent. That’s a promise. Regardless of how annoyed this institution gets with people of color, maybe you should try not being a racist or at least including how racist it CAN be in your brochures?

I feel like a misinformed badger. Then again, I’ve never felt inclusive enough to call myself a badger, ever.

After discussing this past weekend’s biased incident involving myself, my cohort sister Synovia, and the rest of my cohort I really thought we had surpassed this bump in the road, but apparently not.

My cohort brother, Eneale Pickett, a Chicago native and spoken word artist, tells me he was kicked off the bus.

“I was coming back from a religion and sexuality class at the Social Sciences building when I see the bus stop right next to Sterling Hall and of course decide to take the 80 since it’s freezing outside.” Pickett continues on to tell me that he has his scarf on over his headphones and expects nothing of it. He proceeds to get on the bus, full of white people, to go home just like the rest of the students. The bus waits for 5 to 10 minutes before pulling off. But before that happened, the bus driver asks Eneale a question...

*he points at the sign on the top of the bus that reads ‘if you’re in front of the yellow line you can’t ride the bus’*

Mind you, Eneale tells me that he was behind the yellow line, clearly.

The bus driver asks him, “Can you read?” Repeats it 3 times.

By this time, Eneale has removed his earphones to make sure he’s understanding the bus driver correctly. The bus driver repeats, “You obviously can’t read, you must be illiterate, just like the rest of them at this university.”

If I know Eneale, this would set him off but I also know Eneale and a physical altercation is not worth his full tuition scholarship.

But how, how do you ask someone, a person of color, if they can read when they have obviously succeeded in life enough to come to one of the top research universities in the country.

What process does the University of Wisconsin-Madison go through in screening their employees to make sure they aren’t as racist as the lives they live?

Do you feel the racial climate when it’s burning people of color alive?

I want to know how at UW-Madison employee can ask a student this. A freshmen. Talk about the freshmen experience. Instead of the freshmen 15 followed by football games, people of color on this campus face the weight of racism and are photoshopped into brochures to show that people of color go here?

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Eneale got off the bus.

Out of all the white people on the bus, he makes Eneale get off the bus. Without a sound, again, people of color are silenced.

You remove the only person of color off the bus to make room for more white people as if they haven’t already been taking up everything that we try to call home in these ‘inclusive” spaces.

I ask Eneale how he handled the emotional trauma that came after this incident and he states, “after I felt angry, embarrassed, and pissed because our tuition pays that bus driver’s salary.”

I’m actually so tired of having to defend my color at a university that obviously doesn’t want me here, but needs me in order to balance their lack of diversity.

This university needs something more than a culture shock. Stop looking for answers of what it means to be a person of color from a person of color. It isn’t our job to educate white students about our struggles.

So what makes this incident any different than the others? Eneale didn’t report it. If he did, would things have turned out differently? Probably not. This racist bus driver will still have his job. Just like the guy who spit on my cohort sister’s face, nothing will be done.

It almost seems that racially charged incidents on this campus have become the growing trend. What the hell does it matter if that you’re a nationally ranked school when your students can’t even walk to class without feeling like their lives are in danger? When they can’t ride the bus without being discriminated against? I no longer look for answers and approval from this university. Instead, I make my own.

The racial disparity at this school will change & we are here to remind this campus why this is 2016 and not 1619.